The countdown is on: Two weeks from yesterday, we celebrate my favorite holiday!

This post is sponsored by ARM & HAMMER™ and the BlogPaws® Pet Influencer Network™. I am being compensated for helping spread the word about ARM & HAMMER CLUMP & SEAL™ available at PetSmart®, but OhMyDogBlog.com only shares information we feel is relevant toour readers. Arm & Hammer and PetSmart are not responsible for the content of this article.

I love Thanksgiving, you guys! It’s by far my favorite holiday. I love getting friends and family together, sharing laughs and lots and lots of delicious food. So, for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, we’re thrilled to host our favorite people (and pets).

However…

If you read my last post about our cat litter situation, you’re already up to speed on our little litter sitch. If not, here’s the cliff note: the litter box is next to the kitchen. Not conducive to hosting friends and family for a warm, fragrant dinner, right?

The thing with the holiday season, at least at my house, is that it’s sort of like a parade… through Grand Central station… at rush hour.

People come and go. We dress up and rush out to family events and work events. We build fires in our fireplace and sip hot chocolate under a big blanket with the herd. This time of year is busy and wonderful and full of love.

The trick to enjoying every single second? Not getting caught up in the little things!

Here’s an example with the litter box issue: The litter box HAS to be odor-free. If it’s not, our guests can smell it in the kitchen, which is where everyone hangs out. I don’t want to have to pay attention to every single time she “goes” (although… she’s super dramatic about it… she does a top speed lap around the house after every trip to the box… does your cat do that?!?!). So, the solution is a litter that keeps her box odor-free.

They say that the new ARM & HAMMER™ CLUMP & SEAL™ Microguard™ provides bacterial odor control in the litter box for up to seven days.

Of course, we scoop every day because Newt deserves to have a clean box! But as for odor-control near the kitchen… it works like a charm. No wafty cat-box-smells in our turkey dinner!

Plus, the benefit to that is, of course, that we get to spend more time enjoying our guests and keeping Emmett from licking the cheese platter–which we failed at last year… he totally licked it, but I just cut that part off and set it back out!

Thanksgiving turkeys:

One last thing, you guys… The pics of Newt with the box of litter? I had it all art directed in my head, but as you know: cats.

So, I have the funniest outtakes of her being a total pill! I’m traveling today but will share them on Facebook and Instagram over the weekend once I’m home. She is such a goof!

Anyway, if you want to save time this holiday season and keep YOUR kitchen odor-free without much effort:

Neither John nor I had cats growing up, and so everything we know about cats we’re learning from Newt!

You know the phrase, “Happy wife, happy life”? Whoever coined that phrase didn’t have a cat because the phrase would’ve certainly been about the cat’s happiness above all else!

Here are things that make Newt happy: Playing with Cooper, chewing Emmett’s tail, breakfast, lunch in her puzzle toy, dinner, chasing her laser and stuffed mice, and warm laps.

Here are things that make Newt unhappy: Emmett stepping on her tail, getting fed even 15 seconds late, and a stinky litter box.

We can’t control for Emmett and sometimes we can’t feed her on the dot.

We can, however, keep her litter box clean, fresh, and odor-free. For that, we use ARM & HAMMER™ CLUMP & SEAL™… and here’s why it’s so very important to all of us…

Our cat litter journey starts with this picture:

This post is sponsored by ARM & HAMMER™ and the BlogPaws® Pet Influencer Network™. I am being compensated for helping spread the word about ARM & HAMMER CLUMP & SEAL™ available at PetSmart®, but OhMyDogBlog.com only shares information we feel is relevant to our readers. Arm & Hammer and PetSmart are not responsible for the content of this article.

See, in our old house, the litter box was in our bathroom upstairs. We scooped it every day and did a full litter replace and wash of the pan on Sundays, but that odor just lingered with our old litter. Tucked in the upstairs bathroom, it never caused a problem.

In this house, it’s in the thick of things… First off is that door to the left, the one Newt’s sitting in front of. That’s the door that everyone uses to come in the house. With the litter we used to use, you’d walk in the front door and get hit with the distinct litter-box-smell because that little white box beyond the door to the right? That’s Newt’s litter box!

The other BIG problem is that where I’m standing, right across from the box, is in the doorway to the kitchen. A litter box is not the odor you want when you’re cooking!

Instead of focusing on cooking for everyone or playing with Newt and her laser toy or leashing her up to go in the yard with the boys, we would have to scoop the box every single time she went because of the odor.

Then, my mom… innocently sent to the store to pick up litter for us… bought THIS ONE instead of what we were using, and everything changed. This was back in November, and we haven’t gone back since!

Here’s the thing: Newt is totally a “think inside the box” cat. However, if the box is yucky, she lets us know with meows of protest and pacing around her box. That hasn’t been an issue with this litter. We scoop once per day for her comfort, though odor-wise, we could probably go longer. And that’s huge because it saves so much time! Without multiple scoops per day–due to the aforementioned yowling and pacing, not to mention the odor we experienced in the past–it’s a huge relief and we have more time to have more fun with the herd!

And that’s the goal, right?!

Visit your local PetSmart to stock up on the ARM & HAMMER CLUMP & SEAL litter that best fits your lifestyle.

For us, it’s this great big green box… which, if you take your husband to PetSmart to help you take pics for a blog post, fair warning that he might mess with you…

Well, John did. I wanted the BIG box, the 28-pound box. It lasts longer, you know? Anyway, I need to emphasize: twentyeight. pounds.

He kept having me redo the photos! “The box is facing the wrong way.” “I didn’t quite get it.” “It was blurry.”

Finally I realized he was teasing, and we checked out. Sigh. 🙂

Why this type?

Even after you scoop, bacterial odor can keep growing. The innovative, new MicroGuard technology seals and destroys immediate odor AND prevents the growth of future bacterial odor for 7-day odor control.

We don’t want all that bacterial odor growth because, frankly, it attracts the dogs. Blech. Pretty gross but very true. (Hence the little gate with the cat door you see in the pic above… I think this is a good topic for our next post…)

So, Newt’s happy! We’re happy! And that’s what matters!

Tell us: What cat litter do you use? Have you had any experience with this one? Any tips for getting your dogs DISinterested in litter? (I think that last one I need to tackle in a future post!!)